Category Archives: Reviews

The gift of belief: unmissable Wonderful Joe, The Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes at Theatre Network

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Something wonderful, and wonder-filled, happened last night at Theatre Network. We found ourselves on Eileen Street, in a miniature urban neighbourhood on the wrong side of the tracks. Where the homeless are home, and the misfits … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The gift of belief: unmissable Wonderful Joe, The Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes at Theatre Network

Humanizing a hero in a mysterious encounter: The Mountaintop at the Citadel, a review

Posted on April 5, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A road-weary man with a cough and holes in his socks arrives back in an undistinguished Memphis motel on a stormy night in April 1968, dying for a cigarette and checking for hidden microphones before he … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Humanizing a hero in a mysterious encounter: The Mountaintop at the Citadel, a review

The long weekend in a theatre town

Posted on March 29, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca What happens on a long weekend in a theatre town? For starters, a new indie puppet musical and a musical theatre classic, an insightful and captivating comedy about teenage girls, a musical revue, a new play … Continue reading →

Posted in Features, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The long weekend in a theatre town

Back-combing the ’60s: Hairspray at the Jube, a review

Posted on March 27, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Something has happened to the light-hold flexible Hairspray we’ve always known. It’s gone Ultra-Clutch. In a world of chronic downsizing — of prospects, budgets, the polar ice cap … — there’s something reassuring, in theory, about … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Back-combing the ’60s: Hairspray at the Jube, a review

An evening in the park with Sondheim and up-and-comers at MacEwan, and more

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Last night in a packed theatre I got a chance to see the only musical in the repertoire where the rhyme of “rapturous” and “capture us” floats through the air. Both apply to the experience of … Continue reading →

Posted in News/Views, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on An evening in the park with Sondheim and up-and-comers at MacEwan, and more

Building a robot and making friends: fresh and funny Robot Girls premieres at Shadow Theatre, a review

Posted on March 16, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s fresh. It’s funny. Its sharp-eyed insights into the fraught high-stress lives of junior high teenage girls are blended into fast-acting chemistry in Trevor Schmidt’s winsome, hilarious, often touching, new comedy Robot Girls. It’s a tricky … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Building a robot and making friends: fresh and funny Robot Girls premieres at Shadow Theatre, a review

A glorious score that’s already in your brain: The Sound of Music at the Citadel, a review

Posted on March 14, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The Sound of Music, now delighting audiences at the Citadel, is at the top of a tiny list of resistance-is-futile musicals whose mere titles dig into the tune retention part of the brain and won’t let … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on A glorious score that’s already in your brain: The Sound of Music at the Citadel, a review

Life lived precariously, on land and sea: some thoughts on Mermaid Legs at this year’s SkirtsAfire Fest

Posted on March 11, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca At the very last moment on the weekend I finally got the chance to see Mermaid Legs, the theatrical centrepiece of this year’s SkirtsAfire Festival. And there was magic to it. Not only was Sunday the … Continue reading →

Posted in News/Views, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Life lived precariously, on land and sea: some thoughts on Mermaid Legs at this year’s SkirtsAfire Fest

Revelling in the make-believe of theatre: Pith! at Teatro Live, a review

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The pith helmet has returned to Edmonton. And with it, playwright Stewart Lemoine’s invitation, in a well-travelled 1997 comedy both charming and riotous, to have an exotic, liberating adventure in the theatre, along with its three … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Revelling in the make-believe of theatre: Pith! at Teatro Live, a review

Negotiating the darkness of the world: thoughts about This Is The Story Of The Child Ruled By Fear

Posted on February 1, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca We are, none of us, dread-resistant, times being what they are. That sense of being alone and untethered in a universe that’s a chaos of crises and emergencies is a feeling lots of us know. It’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Negotiating the darkness of the world: thoughts about This Is The Story Of The Child Ruled By Fear